


stardew

by voidlightCalliope



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 09:10:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17261495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voidlightCalliope/pseuds/voidlightCalliope
Summary: nepeta likes to watch the stars





	stardew

Nepeta likes to watch the stars.

In the dream bubbles, the stars glisten like damp cherries, smothered in a veil of eerie coral light. In the dream bubbles, the sun is a sphere of wax that melts down onto the dark horizon when night comes to drag away the persistent day. In the dream bubbles, everything is okay and nothing hurts.

At least, that is what Nepeta tells herself or else she is sure she will go pawsitively crazy.

Nepeta like to watch the stars. The stars all babble and burble like shiny fish in a steam (Elegant, plump fish that Pounce De Leon would have snarfed up in second, damp scales muddled at his white fur.) and they trickle down the licorice skies.

Terezi says that the red fish taste like apples. Nepeta knows that they don’t, but as soon as she takes a bite, the rich flavor of red apples runs over her tongue. She doesn’t eat the fish anymore. It’s not like she need to eat anymore in the first place.

Blue iris blossoms grow at the river side, a stark contrast to the apple fish. Terezi loves all the colors. She licks blue and red, yellow and green. She yells all the flavors to Nepeta until the flavors run dry and grey on her numb tongue.

Nepeta remembers how she died.  
*

It had been light and wind past her eyes, teacups shattering into china shards as she yowled and pounced, fury in her blood. But then it had been over. Purple blood and Faygo.

And her cold olive blood smeared across the unforgiving cement.

She had woken up with her eyes glazed over, the color of spilled milk. She cried, the tea colored tears staining her grey skin damp. 

“I hate him.” She told Terezi one time, under the shade of the orange trees by the river, the sweet aroma of fruit drifting down in perfumed coils. Terezi is sharp like the branches, skinny arms still bony in death, “I hate him.”

Terezi’s glasses are lopsided, “He smells like eggplants.” but the wild smirk pasted on her pallid skin quirks ever-so-slightly into a sad smile, “I bet he is getting accosted viciously at this moment and the highest order of the law is being served to him on a silver platter.”

It’s the most sympathy Terezi will ever give. Nepeta manages to smile.

“Justice never fails.” Terezi said. Nepeta is never sure if Terezi’s comforting her, or herself. She guesses it doesn’t really matter anymore. 

*  
Feferi is in the dream bubble too; she smells like lotus perfume and salty sea, rich scent blending into a cocktail of oceanic properations. She brushes Nepeta’s black locks and paints her face into a mockery of a purr-beast with a pink nose and coal black whiskers and Nepeta giggles like a silly wriggler.

There’s no need for her claws here. Something about that is sweetly relaxing and something about that is unnerving. Feferi smiles wide, but Nepeta sees her stare at the scar punched in her stomach by the riverside and clutch her trident closer.

Terezi is the same. The dragon-headed cane swishes at her side in streaks of peppermint color at all times, the rough glint to her glasses and chin never soothes into smoothness.

“You know,” Feferi tries to say to Terezi, “You can’t die twice. There’s no porpoise in carrying around that shelly cane.”

“You’re nervous,” Terezi deduced, licking the cold shell of a plucked orange, “Oranges never taste like orange.” she smacked her lips, tongue poked out, “More like yellow and purple all mixed up.”

“And what makes you think that?” Feferi mumbled, arms crossed. She’s beautiful, even in death, Nepeta marked. Long, luxurious black hair, highblood genetics blessing her with sea-smoothened skin and long candy-corn horns.

“Ughhhh-” Nepeta grumbled. The arguments ruin everything.

Terezi never answers questions if she doesn’t want too, “Your highness, you still drag around your stabbing stick like a unruly cluckbeast to the slaughter.” Feferi blushed sickly pink-magenta high on her cheeks, eye demered down, “You should eat an orange.”

“They don’t taste like anything.” Feferi said, “Nothing tastes like anything anymore.”

Terezi shrugged her shoulders, coring her fruit with a careful claw. She offered Nepeta a piece.

She ate.

“Eww,” she rubs her tongue, “It tastes like fish.”

*

She can’t find Equius. 

She dreams of him inside the dream, his face scribbled in crayon, his waxy face made into a happy one. He’s holding her hand. They’re both smiling.

Why can’t she find him?

She knows he’s dead. He has to be here. His blue blood was caked on the floor, blossoming into pools. Rivers of blood. Nepeta refuses to sleep. Why would she? She doesn’t have to and when she does, all she dreams of is Him.

His matted curls hanging like strips of dirty bark in her face, thick breath curling around her neck, stinking of grapes and sopor. His blood smears her face, his paint clots like clouds and drip down her skin.

She wakes up and screams. Her head tastes like Faygo and her screams smell like cold tea.

And then she watches the stars.

Equius isn’t here. Feferi tries to say that maybe he’s alive. Nepeta doesn’t trust it. She doesn’t trust anyone. She’d trusted him, laughed at his silly jokes, his sopor soaked rants, written him off as a crazy cat.

But the cat came back and sliced her open to the bones and laughed till all the blood swirled out of her.

*

She watches the stars.

Terezi is gone.

“You can’t die twice.” Feferi begged to nobody, trident swishing golden across the salt wet grass.

“You can’t die twice!” Feferi yelled to nobody. The fish are gone. No more fish that taste like apples. Nepeta is relieved. Their beady eyes watched her and in the black depths of their button looking holes, she saw him with fangs bared.

“You can’t die twice.” Feferi said.

She watches the stars.

*

His name is Lord English, which Nepeta would've have once found a purrfectly silly name.

It’s not silly. 

She watches the stars, and the sky is cracked through the seams with ribbons of rainbow light, red and purple fish, orange and yellow fruit, rivers of green and teal, slither-beasts of pink and white. The stars are fading.

Feferi is almost gone. She’s withering like a pruned blossom, petals plucked off slowly. Her grey skin grows paler, her black hair is almost white, the pink tinged blood that she stares at, it bubbles in pastel.

“Don’t worry.” Feferi said, Nepeta pulling her blue hat over her eyes, clutching at the grass, begging not to go, “It’s like going to sleep, I bet. Like slipping into the nicest cocoon of sopor and lulling to bed.”

Nepeta pulled harder on her hat. Her eyes ached. She could see glittering galaxies when she pressed on her eyes.

“Goodnight, Nepeta.” Feferi said.

*

She watches the stars. They rain down like shaken fruit from the skies, blisters of endless color shattering down to ground, breaking into celestial glass. 

*  
She’s nothing but a whisper.

Sleep burns at her eyes, but the night never comes. The dream bubbles flex and snaps, but doesn’t break.

She thinks of Terezi and her oranges and she cries.

*

The rainbow skies are glistening above. Nepeta feels the opiate start to make her tongue heavy. Light and rain, wind and glass. She dreams within a dream and the fabric between waking and sleeping ripples like a wave.

She dreams of blue and olive mixed together in a pot, blood popping into bubbles.

She dreams of faygo and long nights.

She dreams of crabs and cats, red clay walls splattered with paint, white and grey, black and pink, her favorite reds.

She dreams of raw, rotten meat, purple dripping over her roasting flesh as the fire consumes her.

She dreams that she is watching the stars.  
*

It’s like falling asleep. 

The aroma of cherry fish and oranges swells like a happy song, stardew soaks at her eyelids and the black veil peels over slowly.

She’s happy for a glisten of a moment, the smooth butter slick of slumber coming over her body. She’s paralyzed in it’s all consuming blissful oblivion, but the fear sparks like fiery pain.

She’ll never see Equius again.

The colors start to go, and blue flights to linger.

But like all things, it fades. The soap bubble of light pops.

She slumps into the void.

She doesn’t watch the stars.

*

Equius can barely hold the weight of Nepeta’s body. It’s not about strength anymore. Her blood siphons through his fingers and drips to the floor.

Gamzee is honking terror in the corner, anxious and bitter. Blood rolls down his face like raindrops of violet.  
“Why the fuck would she do that?” Karkat is yelling, but his voice is soft, Gamzee is crooning and rocking, “Oh, for fuck’ sake, calm down you shit-slathering wriggler!”

“Oh no, little sister.” Gamzee wails, “Where’s she at?”

“She’s gone.” Karkat bites. It’s the eighth time he’s told him.

Her body is like cotton in his hands. 

Karkat is still screaming bloody murder at Gamazee, but each swear is laced with hot, righteous tears, his claws bustled up into his sweater, holding his wild hair and pulling it.

Gamzee has sopor on his chin.

“Goodnight, Nepeta.” Equius says. The tears break free.


End file.
